Reasons why God doesn't answer prayer (3)

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15
In two earlier posts (here and here), we looked at two reasons why God doesn’t answer prayer – if we have unrepented sin in our heart (Ps. 66:18-19), and if we ask with selfish motives (James 4:3). In today’s verse we have a promise that God will hear and answer our prayers, given one condition: that we ask according to His will.
This is reminiscent of how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Some people see the addition of this phrase to our prayers as a bit of a cop-out; but if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us! Imagine if God answered all of our prayers without any restraint. The world would be a mess. We need to remember that prayer is not for the purpose of getting God to do things for us, like a genie in a bottle; rather, prayer is about conforming our will to His, so that we will pray according to His will.
In light of this, we know that there are some prayers that God will always hear, because they are His will. In the Scriptures we read, “[God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). So any prayer that a particular person would come to salvation, will be heard by God. God wants us to be light to the world, so He will hear any prayer asking to make us more effective witnesses. He wants us to have faith in Him, so He hears the prayer, ‘Help me overcome my unbelief!’ (Mark 9:24). But we must also remember that God answers these prayers in His timing. Don’t be discouraged – if you are praying according to God’s will, if there is no unrepented sin in your life, and if you are asking with right motives – God is hearing your prayer.